I don’t have much interest in sci-fi literature, but this made for a very compelling read. This is the fastest I have completed a book in a very long time. The author writes a gripping story , depicting a futuristic society where artificial intelligence becomes a part of our daily existence, if it isn’t already. For some reason the future children are dying young , either because of the genetic modulation which has been vaguely mentioned in the book or because of an environmental crises ( this may be a reality given the way environmental concerns are unfolding)
To keep these futuristic children company , Artificial friends (AI constructed life-like dolls) are common place. Our main protagonist ( an AI doll ), Klara also goes on to make important decisions which hint at emotional maturity on her part. But that is sort of what the book is about , this exceptionally gifted AI doll. As a sun-stalker myself ( esp the rising and receding one), I got hooked to the observations made by Klara, whether it was about the colours spurned around a room when the sun recedes or the healing powers of the sun.
Life is woven around the small observations we make in daily life ( as much as we may sometimes live in denial of them ). Klara’s observation of the interplay between a man-made machine and the sunlight and it ultimately being reason for the almost death and then revival of a beggar and dog , was very interesting. I felt it when the author depicts the love between a man and his dog being another reason of how they both survive , and it was endearing I to see this become a big part of the protagonist’s plan in saving her owner.
Over all, easy to read, well written, and well ended!
मैंने चीज़ों को थोड़ा थोड़ा तड़पते हुए देखा है …….
खेत में खिलती फसल को
अंजाम लेते हुए सफर को
रिश्तों में आई नरमी को
गले लग जाने की गर्मी को
मैंने चीज़ों को थोड़ा थोड़ा बनते हुए देखा है………
बादलों के तनाव में
बंधनो के खिंचाव में
बच्चे के हॅसने के शोर में
माँ की डांट के जोर में
मैंने चीज़ों के पीछे छिपे असली मतलब को देखा है……..
घाव से उभरी हुई चोट को
सूखती हुई सुबह की ओस को
बालों से लिपटी हुई उस गुड़िया की कंघी को
दिमाग में घर बनायीं उस गुत्थी को
मैंने चीज़ों को थोड़ा थोड़ा सुलझते हुए देखा है………..
मैंने चीज़ों को थोड़ा थोड़ा बनते हुए देखा है
– सुगंधा
सुबह सुबह की धुँधली किरणों की छाओं में- kokopo, PNG
A word to word English translation to this may not do justice to the thoughts behind this. So here is a summary:
I have seen things grow little by little
Like a small child in the womb, then crying in the lap, one day playing in the field and then spreading his wings and taking flight…..I have seen things grow little by little
Like the sapling that rises from a seed, the new leaves showing up on the branch, the drum that gradually gets filled up from the raindrops, the gradually evolving colours of butterflies…….I have seen things change bit by bit
Like the fish caught in the net of a the fisherman lounging in his boat, the tangled hair caught in the comb of a little girl sitting in the court……I have seen things at unrest
Like the harvest in a field, the fruitful completion of a journey, the softness brought about in relations, the warmth of a hug………I have seen things getting built little by little
In the shudder of the clouds, in the pull of attachments, In the noise of the laughter of little children, in the force felt in a mother’s scolding………I have seen the hidden essence of the small things
In the gradual healing of the bruise, in the drying morning dew, in the untangling of the hair of that little girl’s comb, In the slowly untangling of the mind’s puzzles………I have seen things slowly solving themselves out
It never helps to foster an overly dependent relation with anything in life, be it humans, habits, alcoholic addictions, social media or our own pride. The trick is to strive to strike a balance.
A few months ago I watched this documentary – The social dilemma, where Tristan Harris, an American technology ethicist speaks in reference to his days at google and how back then an entire team was set up just to design the look and feel of gmail , to get people addicted to it and eventually making it a revenue generating avenue for google. He spoke about how he found himself alone in realising that if we are creating a system around addiction then we also need to work on some de-addiction algorithms, just to balance out. Of course he must have sounded silly to his entire team because well the world was focused on generating profit at the time. Addiction and de-addiction was left upto us. This is the premise on which the junk food industry and some of the news channels thrive on. Playing around with your gamut of triggers and leaving you at a loss of breath to sometimes be able to reasonably evaluate your options.
With the advent of technology/social media/umpteen modes of communication, we seem to be surrounded by quick access to instant gratification. They may sometimes deluge our modern values to a point of chronic intoxication.
Imagine yourself sitting in your home in that comfortable corner you have created for yourself , reading a book, no thought crowds your mind except the one the author is allowing you to have in that moment. Call this point zero. In this moment there is a feeling of silent contentment created by nothing but an inanimate object such as a book. Suddenly the phone you forgot to keep on silent buzzes for attention and you find your high school Whatzapp group innundated with messages after almost a week. It triggers an excitement, and you find yourself responding with equal fervour. In the meantime your residential complex Whatzapp group starts buzzing with activity, and you check the messages making sure there in no important information you may be missing out on. Somebody in the group points another to the new rules for the complex, a list which is available on another app. Curiosity piqued, you suddenly find yourself go down a rabbit hole, with the book from a short while ago suddenly forgotten into oblivion. Add in your business or office mails to the mix, which manage to stir your phone at the same time. The sudden flurry of activity takes you in a tizzy and from a neutral point of silent contentment you go on a roller coaster ride of excitement, curiosity, nervousness, envy and eventual exhaustion.
Another example for my young readers to relate to, say one nice evening, you are hanging out with your partner and you are feeling good about it,. Its the feeling stirred in you of your own making in that moment. You decide to capture the moment and share as one of your social media posts. Messages ravage your account and you get 100 likes and affirming comments on that post within the first 30 mins. Vanity, something which did not exist until the point you posted ,suddenly takes force. You start feeling a high, you feel celebrated and loved, whereas the love from your partner till a moment ago was sufficient before an external validation came through. Beep beep……..some one drops in a not-so-favorable remark on your picture. You crash to the same extent that you rose a few minutes ago, based on a few virtual clicks.
Venting out for example. Some may find themselves feeling good while venting out, because it feels good to discuss something bothering the mind. The problem occurs when we start feeling a sense of righteousness as a result of the rant and we underplay the other party’s virtues. It elevates us. The higher the elevation, the greater the possibility of crash later when you realise nobody is as evil as you just made them out to be.*
* I am all for sharing problems, provided the idea is not to underplay one’s own role in the gamut of events. Or when it concerns mental health issues. My definition of venting is the repetitive chorus of how someone dealt one a wrong card , with no intention of working on the relationship or moving on.
The examples may not resonate with everyone. For some these examples may be trivial and trigger nothing, but it would be imperative to watch out for the triggers in ourselves that make us seek excitement or happiness outside of us, the sources which have the possibility of becoming addictive and prey on our valuable time, self-esteem or relationships because these are the signals generated in our mind and body as a result.
We all know about Dopamine, and have a decent awareness about how too much or too little dopamine can be bad for us. So even the reward hormone seeks a balance.
‘Simple pleasures “ are called so for a reason. That book lost in oblivion, the person sitting in front of you while you are busy posting about that moment, the relationship you seem to be losing because you chose to vent about them rather then communicate with them are the simple pleasures we lose out on for the sake of the instant gratification that the beautiful packaging of the modern day communication avenues brings to us, just because someone somewhere designed them in a somewhat unthinking way.
The daughter’s balancing act on the waters of fisherman Island.
The idea is not to ‘Not’ share or engage with the world or technology, but to know how much to be stirred and when to retreat. To train ourselves that we have the capability to be content in the silence of mundane day to day activities of watering our plants, of that walk to work, of silly games played with our children, and so many more.
I read somewhere :
Moderation is the secret of wisdom
and happiness. Its ultimate aim is a
reconciliation of opposites.
On that note………I shake myself out of a reverie as my un-watered plants scream for attention.
A few years ago I wrote about A simple life, a set of values I designed uniquely for myself when I leaned inwards for comfort as I stood on shaky ground with the world outside. A deep conversation with a dear friend recently reminded me of it. Sharing the link , in case it may help someone else someday.
Life is not a constant, its forever evolving and there is always something to smile about……
Its been over 5 months since I left Port Moresby. Before leaving, I remember something said to me by a friend as a parting remark “ Su, hope you are able to retain what the island life has taught you”. This is after an hour long conversation of what personal evolution we have felt after living in a city like POM. I didn’t think that within 5 months of moving back to the city life, I would be grappling with holding on to my self from what I was back then. Each day I stare out of my city window, imagining myself back in my island home, one with nature, one with myself. It wasn’t that it was easy, it was very tough, living in conditions like those. But I had done it before and I knew I could manage it this time around too.Its the most jostling of times in ones life which brings out the best in them. So it did for me. So before I start forgetting what it was to live in PNG, I started documenting some incidents as I remember them. Here is one incident I had written about at the time that it happened, during a brief timespan of 1-2 weeks when the pandemic seemed to have receded.
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20th July 2020,Thursday- Papua New Guinea
The last week has been an eventful one. Just when the whole world struggles to grapple with a pandemic, my city decides things need to be spiced up a bit.
The school week started with a bang!! And literally so. Finally after months of serving the cubs and Mister, initially under lock down and later under various permutations and combinations of them being at home , they are all packed off to their respective schools/office, something I was half heartedly looking forward to. I was happy to finally have some ‘me time’ yet knew that it would feel a bit lonely too. But as is the fun of going to school in PNG, schools start their terms mid-week. So the kids looks forward to the weekend after a flurry of fresh activity.Anyways the night before , while we ready ourselves and our bags for school and discuss uniforms/ lunch boxes, somewhere out of the blue we start hearing gun shots. We come out into our balconies and within a radius of 1 km hear people rioting and then more gun shots. This was 7pm in the evening. We indulged in the customary video sharing with family and friends who find these situations exotic. The ruckus went on till noon next day, while no press release had yet revealed the ‘big’ reason why it happened.We just knew that members of 2 different tribes were initially the warring Parties and then a 3rd joined in after spectator-ing for a bit. The police weren’t far behind. The’ Black lives matter’ agendas didn’t really make it to my city so my curiosity was caught between it being a case of honour killing or domestic violence or witchcraftery. The reason for almost 20 hours of ruckus between what sounded like atleast 100-150 people……….as finally revealed …………..was………..wait for it…………legendary……….a case of theft………of a mobile phone……….by a member of one tribe from another. The experience of this event was nothing short of witnessing the Mahabharata yudh.Well we had a similar vantage point as that of Dhritarashtra and Vidur, with swirls of dust rising up from the war zone visible from our building and both wars being fought in the name of honour. 😆
Anyways this was just the beginning of the promising school week. My 5 year old who usually sees a drop in immunity every 1st week of school after holidays decides that she likes school and keeps her health in check. 4 more corona cases appear in the city with 1 fatality. Nothing much changes in the city by way of public health policies. But the week decides to get more interesting and builds to a crescendo.
On Friday after an argument with my dad on phone over why he thinks I should not go to the nursery to get new plants as I could catch covid, something for which i couldn’t come up with a more effective argument beyond a ‘ Pappa, but Mann kar raha hai”(Father,I feel like doing it), karma for arguing with the parent comes knocking at my door. My house starts shaking! Within seconds my building is swaying and i realise that I am in the midst of an earthquake, and a decently massive one. I gather my keys, phone and passports (the soaked almonds work for my presence of mind🤔) , take the flight of stairs down to the outside of the building. Yup that was definitely a big one . 7.3 on the Richter scale they told us later.
Now I was only glad , that the ruckus outside and the gun shots had stopped well in time to give the earthquake some limelight, or I would have been fearing for my life both inside and outside the building. Talk about Catch 22s!
Well by now the “Mann kar raha hai” changed to “ maybe my last few plant purchases in this lifetime, go for it Su,Jee le apni zindagi” so I brought home some new plant babies.
Them plants babies 😊
The Earthquake left an initial Tsunami warning which was later withdrawn, but it did leave a little damage to the city buildings with gaps in tile spacings, aircon ducts falling off , bottles and photographs falling off desks, etc etc. But nothing too significant!
My darling daughter comes home to tell me that when the earth quake happened the music teacher made the kids lie down on the classroom floor. I wonder how in an earthquake prone city teachers don’t remember to take the kids out in the open. But thats probably because they don’t eat badam (almonds)🤔🤣
In a nut shell ,what started with a bang ,ended with a jolt!
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For many months after this we kept feeling tremors (mostly caused by the cars moving about and into our building), but it would be enough to get our instincts up with us ready to bolt.Over the next couple of weeks following these incidents , our kids were trained as to how to react in the situation of earth quakes. My elder one was instructed to pick his sister, the nearest phone available, our easily accessible passports , toothbrushes if possible ( my neighbour inspired me to add this , nobody wants to be caught with bad breath the next day after an earth quake😉) and go down the flight of stairs. This was apart from the otherwise training the kids recieved on a regular basis. My kids knew better then to roll down the car windows when we left our building. car jackings at gun point was a common possibility in Port Moresby, my husband and a few colleagues were chased at the golf course by gun bearing thugs, one of them misfired his gun in frustration at not being able to catch up with his victims ( my husband practices his chase run every day😆). This incident of course was relayed to me many weeks after its occurrence, as I was still dealing with the frequent visits of snakes to our building. This may sound very overwhelming to my readers, Port moresby may sound like a very dangerous city to live in. But this is what I have learnt through my experiences there. You don’t know whats going to happen tommorow, live a good life today , live a good moment today, help who you can, ask for help when in doubt. Live and love by instinct. Live and try to flourish in the space you are provided. I stopped to exist in any other experiences that I had previously been living*. live the experiences with people physically around you, your neighbours, your helpers, your colleagues, your children , your spouses, your parents, because that’s the most you would get sometimes, and that’s quite a lot. Make the best of what you have in front of you today.Pick yourself a little by little when you are beaten down, even if that’s the most you have done on that day. For you don’t know when you may be caught in the midst of a riot or an earthquake or a pandemic if not all 3 🤪
Me learning to breath in different ways, in preparedness for whatever mighty happen next🤪🤣
*currently I may be holding on to my island city, but that’s in gratitude for all the personal evolution I underwent there. I am very much present and flourishing in the city and moments in which I reside in today.
ExpressionsBySu 